Fallout: Stardust
by M.B.Liddle
Summary: Humanity has escaped it's blighted cradle! Many decades ago, intrepid citizens from the four corners of the Wasteland made their escape on the mighty Vault-Tec Arc. Now the newly settled Promised Land sector poises on the precipice of a new discovery that will shake the fragile order. Old enemies will rise up from places forgotten, and new heroes will have to rise to meet them.
1. Chapter 1

**Fallout: Stardust**

* * *

 **Act 1 Issue 1  
**

 **Space Chase!**

* * *

The _Archangel_ was gaining on its prey. Its sharp nosed prow cut through the darkness of space as the bright flares of its engines shrieked silently and clawed at the empty vacuum. The raptor-like frigate drove on through the empty space between stars, driven by the will of its captain. It was the very latest and greatest of the pre-war Hierarchy arsenal. Or at least the Captain liked to think. He was sure the dreadnought jockeys of the Fleet would love to disagree, but then again, the War wasn't won by dreadnoughts. And besides, they weren't here right now. The _Archangel's_ captain allowed himself a predatory grin, his mandibles rattling.

"Helmsman, what's our time to intercept?" He asked. He strode forward from his raised command platform, heading towards the isolated pilot's station. Crewmen worked diligently at their consoles, heads bent over tracking data, targeting suites, and communications gear. The captain nodded to each in turn as he walked the narrow walkway. He came to a stop behind the pilot.

"Still two hours out, Spectre Vakarian," the boy snapped out, almost squeaking from the thick layer of academy polish that hadn't quite been knocked off yet. The captain nodded.

"Good, we're making excellent time. Engage stealth systems, keep us in his blind spot and push us in slow. I don't want them getting spooked and running to FTL."

"Yes, sir!" the helmsman acknowledged with just a little too much gusto. His excitement was shared by much of the crew, especially amongst the fresher faces. Many of them, like the young turian in the pilot's chair, were fresh graduates of the academy. A few too many, if he were honest. Not that they weren't as capable as any of the well salted officers and ratings that still manned the _Archangel_ , though their enthusiasm and wide eyed hero worship he could do without, it was the familiar faces that should have been sitting at those consoles that really got to him.

"Good, good. Sensors, do we have a visual yet?" He stalked back along the bridge neck, eyes fixed on the holographic display projected into the center of the room. For the last week and a half it had displayed nothing but two points of light in space, his ship, and that of his quarry. He had gazed at that bright crimson point for hours, trying to imagine what the monsters who piloted it might look like. His question was answered as his sensor officer silently pushed her display to the holotank. The bright points expanded out before resolving themselves into an image. The captain felt his crest rise in curiosity. "What am I looking at, T'Soni?"

"I'm.. not sure, Garrus," the asari on the other side of the projector said, her face screwed up in a frown of concentration. "It looks… not unlike a ship of some kind. Definitely not any that the Council races have run into before, officially or unofficially. Looks sort of like a torpedo, writ large, doesn't it?"

The ship in the holotank did look at least somewhat like one of the standard issue disruptor torpedoes that warships carried as a matter of course, if perhaps an overly ornate one. It was long, cylindrical, with a bulbous bullet nose and raised fins that ran down its length and tapered to points around a brightly glowing engine cone at the rear of the ship, making it look like something out of Palaven's early rocket age. Other devices of less obvious purpose studded the ship's otherwise sleek hull and crude glyphs were daubed along one side in gaudy paint.

"Any luck on the translation yet?" He asked, cocking his head to peer at the scrawled golden writing.

"None so far," T'Soni admitted with a slight darkening of her cerulean features, "What little samples of the language we've gathered so far are few and incredibly fragmentary. Not to mention that the native survivors were less than helpful." The asari's head rills shivered slightly at the memory.

"Well, they probably thought we were more of the invaders," another voice joined them through the ship's intercom. Garrus smiled at the sound of his ship engineer's voice." After what they've just been through, who could blame them for having a hostile reaction? Besides, they only had chemical slug throwers, nothing our big, strong Spectre Captain couldn't handle."

Garrus cleared his throat. "Yes, thank you, Tali. Now, if we could get this conversation back on track. T'Soni, if you'd care to lay out what we _do_ know about our quarry." The turian Spectre stepped back to allow the former information broker to move to the fore. She addressed the room at large, throwing images from her glowing Omni-tool into the tank in the center of the room. The interloper's ship minimized to the edge of the globe as new images took its place; a galaxy map marked in dotted red lines, the ruined third planet in an undeveloped system, and the disturbingly asari-like natives of said planet.

"Less than I'd like to have going into any kind of confrontation. What I and Glyph have been able to put together is mostly conjecture I'm afraid. We do know that they've never made contact with any council race, and that they originate from beyond the 314 Relay. It's likely that their home planet is within the dense star cluster they've been making a beeline to since we picked up their trail. Glyph calculates a thirty percent chance at least one habitable planet orbits one of the five stars in question. We know they are warlike, we all saw their handiwork, and that they are both willing and able to use a nuclear weapon on an inhabited garden world. This alone is enough to condemn them by Citadel law, alongside the additional charges of activating uncharted mass relays."

"Not that we're entirely innocent of that charge ourselves," their Commander of Marines added ruefully. "It's essentially been our continuing mission since the end of the war to go poking around the unclaimed regions."

"Be that as it may…"

"Spectre Vakarian!" the pilot called. "The enemy vessel has changed course!"

Garrus' crest rose in alarm. "Could they have spotted us at this range?" he croaked out. "Our approach should have been masked by their engine output. No, this has to be something else. A scheduled course correction perhaps. Navigator, place their new course versus their last course on the galaxy map."

The images in the holotank shifted again, resolving into the familiar shape of the galaxy. The image flickered, zooming in to the eastern spiral arm, and once again to the unexplored region of space they were barreling through. Red lines traced their way through the local cluster, the first one thin and dotted. Their original course, Garrus surmised, as it augured in almost a straight line from the sight of the nuclear attack directly towards the dense cluster of stars ahead. There had been almost no deviation, not even a stop to discharge their drive core. That one had posed a puzzle that even Tali couldn't answer. The second line was thicker, angrier. It diverted at almost a right angle from the interloper's previous course, down and away from their apparent target. A third, green line tracked the _Archangel's_ entry into the cluster and its subsequent chase.

"If it is a scheduled course change, it is a strangely timed one," Liara commented. "We're in deep space, and this new course will drive them straight off the elliptical."

"My thoughts exactly," Garrus replied, scratching his chin with a taloned hand in thought. "But still, they shouldn't be able to detect us at this range. Even Reaper sensors weren't that good. Is it possible that they've seen something ahead of us that we can't see? STARC?"

 **-It is possible-** rattled the grating, mechanical voice of the Strategic Targeting Assistant and Restricted Countermeasures, - **The light delay at this distance is non-negligible. However, use of active sensors would negate our stealth advantage.-**

"So we have a conundrum on our hands," Liara said. "Do we maintain the chase with stealth systems engaged and risk running into a third party out there but retain the element of surprise, or do we go active and close the distance as quickly as possible. Personally with the other ship being such an unknown quantity, I'd elect to continue tailing them. We can always break off the chase if something nastier is out there."

"I disagree," the Marine Commander retorted, "Whether they've seen us or not, it's clear that something on the field has changed. I say we run them down and board them before they manage to slip away."

"Sergeant Victus, I know you were more affected by evidence of nuclear weapons than the…"

Garrus withdrew as his subordinates debated around him. His steely gaze was fixed on the two lines, green and red, as they drifted further and further away from each other. What he wouldn't give for just a glimmer of insight into the being captaining the other ship. He scratched at his mandibles, tracing the paths with his eyes, visualizing the space around them. Though deep in the space between stars, no patch of the galaxy was truly empty. His eyes fell on the rapidly scrolling list of extrasolar bodies that were being automatically detected, tagged, and catalogued. A small blip of identical contacts flashed across the list. Garrus' eyes widened.

"T'Soni, Victus, enough." The two arguing crew members went silent immediately. Liara's jaw snapped shut with a click. Victus' jaw remained open in a much less dignified manner. "I think I know where our friend is going. Here's what we're going to do."

* * *

The _Eagle_ was losing ground. Its bullet nose plowed through the Great Beyond with all the speed its impulse drive could squeeze from the cylinders, and it was not enough. The conical space rocket had already been cruising flat out when chance had revealed its stalker; now the engineering spaces creaked and groaned with the effort the chief engineer was coaxing out of them with all the fiery profanity and percussive maintenance their ilk was known for. His extortions echoed through the steel grille of the main deck and played across the eerily silent bridge. Too quiet for the ship's intrepid commander's tastes.

"Mr. Navigator, how soon until they intercept us?" the high, bright voice of the Commander rang out. The officer hunched over the ship's mechanical plotter rifled through tabulation printouts until he found what he was looking for. He unbent to his rather impressive height and swept the olive coloured high-peaked cap from his head to daub at his sweat-shined forehead.

"Not more than two hours, Colonel," he said in a papery voice just above a whisper. He jammed the cap back over his thinning hair. "Unless they pile on more speed. Which, if I might add, is unlikely. They have maintained a constant speed since we detected them."

The Colonel nodded and rose gracefully from her command chair, pulling her over-sized olive tunic taut and adjusting her weapons belt. "As you say. Black Cats, but they're fast. Any idea what their engines are made of?"

"None so far, Colonel," Professor Carmike grunted after listlessly flicking some of the switches on his console back and forth a few times. The Colonel groaned inwardly when no further report seemed forthcoming. Just her luck to be saddled with the only Follower in the galaxy who hated science. Well, as the adage said, if you wanted something done…

"Thank you, Carmike," The Colonel doffed her own peaked cap and flung it into the seat of her chair. She headed fore, passing the loudly clacking navigator's plotter and moving onwards to the ship's piloting station. The wide, paneled glass of the cockpit offered an open and captivating view of the Great Beyond. The Colonel had caught herself staring out in wonder more times than she could count. But not today. Today was a day for serious business. She stopped just behind the pilot's station, where the rocket jockey on duty lay face forward to the front scopes. "Alright, Cadet Sprye?" She called.

"Oof." The cadet attempted to rise to salute, unfortunately forgetting once again the cowling that wrapped around his head and shoulders. She shuffled backwards on the pilot's lounge and rose shakily, blushing furiously to the roots of his bright orange hair. "So- sorry, Colonel Shepard-Dare, Ma'am." The boy saluted like a springboard, almost vibrating with energy. "Eyes on the scopes, you know how it is, ma'am. Focus like a laser beam I have, all the proctors at the Academy said so. Eyes on the scopes is all."

Colonel Shepard-Dare laughed lightly and returned the cadet's salute in jaunty Space Force fashion, which elicited a beaming smile that could have lit up the inky blackness as well as the flare of an impulse engine.

"As you were, Cadet. I'm just here to take a peek outside."

The cadet nodded, finally dropping his rigid salute. "I'll just get back to flying the ship, ma'am," he said sheepishly before diving head first back under the pilot's cowling. The metal rang loudly as he bumped his head on the inside. Colonel Shepard-Dare smiled and moved over to the viewing podium. "Up stellarscope!" she called as she stepped lightly up onto the raised dais and reached up to where the cylindrical stellarscope housing hung from the ceiling. She hauled down on the side handles and pressed her eyes to the eyepiece. Space unfolded before her in all its glorious array as powerful lenses swept it for their pursuers. The Colonel turned in place, dragging her narrow view across the stars. "Where are you? Where are you? Aha, here we are!" She centered her view on a bright pinprick in the black and cranked the magnification. Space rippled and suddenly she had a close view of the trailing ship. It was sharp, angular, like a hawk with wings outstretched and sharpened talons outstretched. A sour expression flittered across the Colonel's face. It was a sharp, ugly kind of thing. And it was pointed right at her ship.

"Tea, mum," rasped a voice right at her elbow. It was Shepard-Dare's turn to knock her head about as she jumped at the startling noise.

"Oof. Black Cats, Digby, don't sneak up on me like that!" She pushed the stellarscope tower back into its resting position and turned towards her faithful batman. The somewhat short and portly ghoul stood at affable rest, tray of the _Eagle's_ fine china held in rad rotted hands. His old uniform, though patched over and over again, was neatly pressed and cleaned as always, which served in contrast to his unruly yet singular shock of snow white hair. Colonel Shepard-Dare relished the smell of the fine tea but held her hand up none the less. "Not now, if you hadn't noticed we're in a spot of bother at the moment."

"I'm afraid I hadn't, mum," the ghoul admitted. "At least take a biscuit. I always find a biscuit helps with a sticky situation. Except maybe a treacle biscuit, that would of course make thing a deal worse, haha." He chuckled roughly.

"Oh, maybe just one then," the Colonel said, reaching for one of her favourites.

"Awfully nasty looking brute, isn't it, mum," Digby stepped up to the stellarscope and peered through. "I imagine if your grandfather were here he'd give them a bloody good seeing to, wouldn't you say mum?"

The Colonel's lips pressed into a hard line as she shot a look to her batman. "Yes, well Grandfather isn't here, so I suppose I'll just have to be the one to give them a 'bloody good seeing to." She looked back to the scope. "Does look rather nasty though, doesn't it? I wonder why they're after us." She traced the outline of the underslung talon-like protrusions. Weapons of some kind? She'd never seen a laser cannon that size, and they didn't look anything like plasma weapons. She shivered as she peered out at the ship, feeling in her bones that as she watched, so she was being watched.

"I can't imagine they're up to any good. Any decent sort would've contacted us by now." Digby snuck one of the biscuits from the tray with his usual lack of subtly and stuffed it into the breast pocket of his uniform.

"No," the Colonel agreed, "I expect we'll have to make a break for it. A ship that fast is likely to outgun us as well. If only there were some way to…" The sharp light of inspiration flashed in her eyes, brightening her drawn features. "Hang on, Digby, I think I have an idea." The _Eagle's_ captain turned on her heel and strode purposefully back to the Navigator's station. The clattering of china told her Digby was in close pursuit. "Oh Mr. Navigator."

"Yes, Captain?" the officer replied in a dry tone reminiscent of the whispery paper continuously running through his plotter. "The other ship is still gaining, if that is what you were wondering. Keeping to our rear quarter, just below the horizon of our drive cone as before." The Navigator sniffed officiously.

"Yes, I'm aware of what is behind us," Shepard-Dare answered impatiently. "I was hoping for more information of what's ahead of us."

"Ahead?" he asked, removing his cap and dabbing prodigiously. His overgrown calculator clattered to a stop behind him. "I shall fetch the reams." He stuffed his cap back on and scurried off somewhere toward the back of the bridge.

Digby stepped up beside her, startling her again. She hadn't noticed him leave. He held her cap out to her, proud atom with flanking rockets gleaming in the electric lights of the bridge. "You have a cunning plan then, eh, mum?"

"Yes, Digby. How well do you know your history?"

"Know it? Well, I lived it, mum." The ancient ghoul puffed up his sunken chest with pride, a motion that set his gut and hair wobbling in tandem.

"Oh, good. Then you'll know all about Project 19-99?" The Colonel said airily as she did some mental math and tried to recall her own history lessons.

"Er…" Digby rasped self-consciously. "Not as such, mum, no. Some prewar science boffin's pet project, was it?" He scratched at his flaky scalp.

"No, Digby," Shepard-Dare said, "definitely post-war. Post Exodus, actually. Vault-Tec's _Arc_ was cutting edge, but it was still atomic. And what is always the biggest limit on the use of atomic power? Barring fuel, of course." She added.

"Why, what to do you all the waste, mum," Digby enthused, clearly quite chuffed with himself.

"Exactly right. Unfortunately, the engineers responsible for the _Arc_ didn't think of that when they were dreaming her up. And so, the Five Captains had to come up with a solution in flight, thus bringing us to Project 19-99." The Colonel peered back into the dimly lit recesses of the engineering spaces, her eyes searching for the delinquent Navigator. "There was, as there always was back in those days, a lot of quibbling back and forth on the matter, but basically they elected to dump the radioactive waste on any and every solid body they came across And if my guess is correct, we should be coming up on Dump Site Alpha just about now. Ah, and here is Mr. Carter."

The ship's Navigator hustled towards them with rolls of spooled plotting tape gathered under his arms. "All the stored plotting data for the area of space ahead of us. You'll notice I only have two sets of charts, this space hasn't been extensively mapped like the Promised Land systems"

"And we don't need it to be," Shepard said. "We just need one of these." She grabbed one of the plasticized reels and held it up to the bridge's lights. The words, 'A Arc, Navigation Records, 58-119' gleamed in narrow gold lettering along the rim. Colonel Shepard slipped the reel onto the projector spindle mounted above the plotting station and threaded the magnetic tape carefully into place. The projector's bulb flickered on, throwing the arcane sigils of the navigator's profession across the currently tabulating printout. She traced the line of her forebears' travel across the cosmos, stopping at a symbol that needed no translation, the three lobed flower of Danger! Radiation! Scrawled beside it, Alpha. "Good, it's right where it was in the book. And we are… here, yes. That puts us right on top of it."

"That is correct, Captain," Navigator Carter answered, a look of surprise slipping across his face, quickly chased off by his usual tired blandness. "In fact, I believe we'll be within visual range presently. And you're absolutely certain that this will help with our current situation?"

"Absolutely. Gunnery Chief, prep a mini-nuke from the magazine and begin calculations on a low speed, close range launch, coordinates zed zed nine, plural zed alpha. Cadet Sprye, alter course. Put us in a dive, full power, and the reserves too. Same coordinates." She turned from the plotter and strode back to her command chair with purpose in the steps and fire behind her eyes. She did a sharp turn and swept the high peaked cap from her chair, pressing it down lightly over her dark curls. "Alright gang, let's shake our tail and get ourselves home."

* * *

"They're still diving sharply," the Helmsman reported smartly. "Holding course and on track to intercept with the spacial objects in grid seven two zero. Acceleration holding constant. Time to intercept with the _Archangel,_ ten minutes."

"Any clues as to what it is they're aiming for?" Sergeant Victus mused out loud as he bent over the holotank. "Whatever it is, it's certainly ugly."

Garrus couldn't help but agree. The squat little facility jutted from where it had been sloppily constructed on the larger of the paired deep space asteroids. The heavy construction was studded with thick bodied cylinders set in disorganized rows, each covered by sturdy rectangular struts. Radiation rippled across the augmented image in the command center holotank. "Tali'zorah believes it's some kind of fuel dump and I'm inclined to believe her. Although given those emission levels, they're running some awfully dirty form of power production. Fits with their dirty tactics." Garrus turned away from the display and motioned for the sergeant to follow. "I want radiation dampening inserts in all the marines' harnesses when we board them, who knows what the inside of their ship is like."

"Already have a squad working on the refit in the armory," Victus replied. "I have the medics prepping a regimen of radiation countermeasures. It won't stop everything, but it'll give us about ten minutes exposure time, assuming radiation levels on that scow is similar to the fuel dump."

Garrus nodded approvingly. Victus really did make a better sergeant than he ever would an officer. "Ten minutes, that's not a lot of time. Then again, I've been on hostile ships with stricter time limits." He scratched absentmindedly at the chunk missing from his left mandible. "Have them ready, Victus. It'll be just like the _Zelbinian_."

"Hopefully not entirely. I don't want to have to drag you off this ship like I did that accursed wreck." Victus said, his face suddenly becoming solemn.

"Yes," Garrus replied, equally as grave. "Although I think you're remembering that skirmish incorrectly, my friend. I remember having to pick _you_ up and carry you off the deck after than seam blew out in the hangar."

Victus broke out in a croaking fit of laughter. "In the hanger, yes. How could I forget? Which fight was I thinking of?"

"I don't think that fight will ever come," Garrus replied mirthfully, slapping the soldier on the pauldron. "You just keep hoping, th…" his sentence was cut off mid word by the grating voice of STARC.

 **-Hostile vessel has deployed a device to the fuel dump's surface. Purpose unknown.-**

"Any readings?" Garrus dismissed Sergeant Victus with a flick of the head. "Pilot Subpono, warm up the Thanix and secondary batteries, I'm getting a bad feeling about this one."

 **-Acquiring… Mass, thirty-five kilograms, Dimensions, seventy-eight centimeters by twenty-eight centimeters. Velocity steady at forty-one meters per second. Radiation emissions measuring at forty rad/s. Impact with the surface in ten seconds.-**

"No acceleration? No power readings of any kind?"

 **-Negative.-**

"So it's unlikely to be a weapon," Liara said, stepping up next to the Spectre. "Just what is it they are up to?"

* * *

"And… impact!" Cadet Sprye called out. Silence fell about the flight deck as the expected conflagration failed to occur. "I… uh, said Impact!"

"Gunnery Chief, report!" Colonel Shepard-Dare ordered. Her glare was steely-eyed as she rounded on the aged Mr. Gutsy. The three armed robot flexed its manipulator arms in the closest equivalent to a shrug.

 **-Well, we definitely hit it, Cap'n!-** The whirring ordinance officer interjected. **–By my calculations, there must have been a failure in the contact fuse. I suspect commie sabotage, ma'am!-**

"I'll take it under advisory," the Colonel replied. "Can we detonate remotely?"

 **-Not on a second generation mini-nuke, ma'am-** the Gunnery Chief grated. **–If the impact detonator failed, our only option is to manually trigger the warhead or breach the casing.-**

"Well, I don't imagine we'll find many volunteers to go down and set it off," Colonel Shepard-Dare said ruefully. "Could we set it off with our tail gun? Surely hot plasma would be sufficient to breach the casing on the mini-nuke."

 **-Our tail guns would be more than sufficient. However, at this distance our defensive installations lack the point accuracy to hit the warhead. That and we'd lose the element of surprise!-**

Shepard-Dare rubbed her chin thoughtfully as the bridge clicked and whirred about her. Everyone looked to her as she struggled for a solution. On the stellarscope, the undetonated mini-nuke lay gently atop the main storage compartment of Dump Site Alpha, almost mockingly.

"I have an idea, mum," Digby said from his position at her shoulder. "But I don't think you're going to like it."

"At this juncture, Digby, I'm all ears." She replied with a pregnant sigh.

"Well, you recall my adventure with your grandfather over Mekonta?" Digby said, with a surprisingly cunning look in his eye. The Colonel's features went blank as she tossed about in her memory. "Over the flame-belt, mum." He added helpfully. Shepard-Dare's face turned feral.

"Yes. Yes I think that might just work. You'll have to move quickly." She turned to the Gunnery Chief. "Chief, I'll need a space suit and one of the long-lasers brought up, on the double!" The Mr. Gutsy threw a smart salute and rocketed away on his jet propulser. "Best get back to the tail gun, Digby. We'll only have one shot at this."

"One shot is all I'll need, mum," The ghoul responded. His salute was much less professional, yet made up for it in enthusiasm. He scampered off with uncharacteristic spryness.

* * *

The two ships streaked across the inky backdrop of space, their captains standing proud on their respective bridges. Between them lay the silently orbiting rocks of the long abandoned nuclear waste dump, its deadly potential unknown to the pursuer. As the distance closed, both captains became surer in the success of their plans. Though they did not know it, both minds ran on identical tracks as the seconds to intercept ticked down to zero.

"Pilot Subpono, move us in…"

"Cadet Spry, hold us steady…"

"Marines, prepare to board…"

"Ready on that laser, Digby…"

"Here we go…"

"Here we go…"

"Alright, I…"

"Have…"

"You…"

"Now…"

"Taking the shot, mum!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Fallout: Stardust**

* * *

 **Act 1 Issue 2**

 **Pursuit in Deep Space**

* * *

"As I was saying, the _Archangel_ is fine. She's a sturdy ship and the explosion wasn't nearly as energetic as it could have been. Our kinetic barriers soaked up the shrapnel and the radiation shielding took care of the rest."

"I feel like there's a 'but' coming here," Garrus replied, waving away the marine combat medic buzzing about at his shoulder.

Tali's glowing eyes-lights took on a sheepish glint. "…but, all that radiation that didn't go through the hull had to go somewhere, and that means the space around us was supersaturated with random particles. We were completely blinded. The particles dispersed quickly, but it was enough time for that other ship to get away."

"I suppose I can't expect everything to go our way. At least no one's seriously hurt and the ship is still flying. Start a trace on their engine emissions as soon as possible. They've got a head start, but we won't have to bother with stealth this time around. I want to catch these guys."

"That might not be possible," Tali said awkwardly. "STARC's been sweeping since we cleared the fuzz out of our sensor array. There's no trail at all."

"How is that even possible?" Garrus asked hesitantly. He pulled the video feed from the console to his Omni-tool and headed back towards the newly refitted war room. "That ship's exhaust cone was pretty bright; shouldn't there at least be something we can follow?"

"There should be… but, there isn't. I don't know what they were using for trust, but it either diffuses fast, or it doesn't leave anything behind at all. Either way, we're out a trail. Sorry."

"Not your fault," Garrus reassured her. He stepped through the body scanner with a tic of annoyance. For all the supposed upgrades that had gone into the _Archangel's_ rebuild after the second battle over the Citadel, they still hadn't managed to make it run any faster than a maddening crawl. The marine guard looked on without a glimmer of sympathy.

The doors ahead slid open silently, finally allowing him access to the War Room. The large, round room was quiet, quieter than even the slowest day during the War. Still, it was far busier than it had been in a long time. Garrus hadn't even realized how much he had missed the dull roar of concerted strategic action. Liara was already there, pawing through a half dozen data streams on the rebuilt holotable. The image brought back memories, though the room around them was different now. It no longer had the ad hoc, last minute feel it had worn during the fighting, where it had been pulled out of the refit yards mere minutes ahead of the Reapers. The floor was no longer covered by trailing power conduits and data lines. The rows of consoles against the walls were smartly mounted in proper workstations and towards the rear; the quantum entanglement gear was set back in its own enclosed booth. It was very neat, orderly, turian. It was the way a recently reactivated admiral might have wanted his flag vessel to look. The way his father would have… Garrus shook the thoughts from his mind.

"Liara, anything new?"

The asari looked up from her rapidly scrolling data with a wan smile. "Nothing particularly useful, I'm afraid. I am making some headway on their language with the additional fragments we salvaged from their installation. It's quite fascinating, really, the construction was incredibly durable, and the materials. I took the liberty of dating them, the alloys are many hundreds of years old, but shows signs of multiple reforgings, like they've been using the same metal over and over…"

Garrus held up a hand. "I'm sure the archaeological data makes for excellent reading. I just hope that you haven't forgotten that they were shooting at us less than an hour ago. Anything more… tactical?"

"Oh, yes," Liara blushed a deeper blue and pushed six of the seven feeds off to the side, pulling the last to the fore. "From information gathered before the blast, they used a low yield fission weapon, detonated by short range laser. Their equivalent of the GUARDIAN, I imagine. I'm still not seeing any evidence of kinetic barriers; or any mass effect technology at all. It's quite likely their systems are built on completely different principles. It would explain how they were able to detect us while stealthed."

"So, they remain as mysterious as ever, perhaps even more so. I'm beginning to like this more and more," the turian Spectre groused. "Tali says there's no trail for us to follow. We're going to have to get clever on this one."

Liara furrowed her brow. "I think we all remember the last time you 'got clever' on a mission, Garrus. Javik still won't speak to me."

"Eh, you know him, that's just how he is. Has to keep up his image as Emperor of all the Protheans." He relented as Liara shot him another look. "Hey, we got the dents out of his fancy suit eventually. Besides, I already have a plan."

* * *

The _Eagle_ bucked and buckled under the force of the new star birthed in its wake. The hull shrieked as the blossoming firestorm slammed against it. All around the bridge, the crew's personal Geiger counters ticked away loudly. Colonel Shepard-Dare gripped the arms of her command chair with white knuckles as her ship rode out the wave of destruction she'd just unleashed behind her. The thin metal plates separating her and her crew from the vast emptiness of the Great Beyond flexed troublingly.

"Cadet Sprye! All power to the engines! Keep us ahead of that wake before it shakes us apart!" She called out. Her teeth rattled as she tried and failed to keep her voice steady.

"A-ye ay-e, ma'am!" The young cadet shoved the throttle to the deck and the _Eagle_ leapt forwards. The rattling in the ship's structure lessened as they gained ground on the blast wave, finally coming to a stop as the warm glow of Dump Site Alpha faded into the rest of the Black. "Looks like we made it, Colonel Shepard-Dare, Ma'am. No sign of our pursuers on the scopes." Sprye called jubilantly.

"Excellent work, Cadet. Slow to cruising speed and keep us on this heading." Shepard blew out her cheeks and allowed herself to sink back into the padding of her chair. She doffed her cap and ran her hand through her thick brunette curls. She shakily pushed herself to her feet and gave the bridge a quick scan. The crew, barring the robots, looks frazzled but otherwise none the worse for wear.

Navigator Carter looked up from his precious plotter and let go of the reams of printouts he had clutched to his chest. Crewmen who had clung to their consoles and terminals let go almost hesitantly. Down below, the _Eagle's_ Chief Engineer was once again swearing up a storm, and by the sound of it, he was getting closer. The Colonel quickly readjusted her tunic and turned to face the companionway ladder. Sure enough, the Chief's squashed, froglike face and protuberant nose rose out of the murky depths he called his realm.

"Oi, Cap'n!" He cried in his thick, oily voice. "What's the big idea, eh? Warn a man before you shake him like he was in a tumble dryer! Nearly bust a seal down here, I swear, I oughta…"

"Are you quite finished, Engineer Turque?" Shepard-Dare cut him off. "Did we, in fact, spring a leak? Did we suffer any casualties? Are we, at this very minute, about to explode?" She stared her rebellious engineer down, setting her jaw.

"Well, uh, no, not as such," he said recalcitrantly, seeming at first to relent. His eyes hardened, though, and he stuck his head back up. "But that's not the point. Thing is, Ma'am, doesn't matter if it doesn't kill us now if it kills us a day from now, or a week. The _Eagle's_ not the young star cruiser she was when your grandfather walked the deck, Atom take him to His glow."

The Colonel's face became flinty at the mention of her forebear.

"You'll kindly take that kind of talk and stow it, Chief," she said in void-cold tones. "This ship may be old, but it is not frail. I took a risk, yes. But it was a risk that saved the ship. If your estimations of this vessel are so low…" She let her voice trail off and turned away.

"I never once had had doubts in the ship," Engineer Turque muttered at her back. The words hung heavily in the air on the silent deck. The Colonel swung back around, her mouth open in shock. The engineer gave her one last fiery stare and disappeared into the engineering spaces, slamming the hatch down behind him. Shepard-Dare stood paralyzed on the bridge, suddenly very aware of how much her crew was staring at her. Alone there in the middle of the room, dressed in oversized uniform she suddenly looked very, very young. She cast her widened eyes to either side of the bridge.

"Back to your stations!"

After a second of exchanged glances, the crew dispersed and began doing their hardest to look busy. Navigator Carter shook his head sadly before going back to his plotter. Colonel Dare stalked back to her command chair and slumped down into it without any attempts at decorum. Carefully, she dried her eye with a swipe of her shirt sleeve. Something rattled tinnily at her shoulder.

"Tea, mum?"

"Not now, Digby," she responded sharply, throwing her ghoulish lackey a disapproving but not entirely unfriendly look. He gave her a warm smile from behind degraded lips. The Colonel suppressed a girlish giggle and extended a hand. "Oh, go on then." She gladly accepted the warming cup of the acorn-hued beverage and sipped slowly. She smiled despite herself. "Thank you, Digby."

"Hmm," The portly batman nodded sagely and slipped the biscuit out of his pocket. "Isn't much that can't be fixed with a spot of good tea." There was a rustling noise and a creak as he took a seat beside the raised chair, his back to her. His next words were carefully chosen and spoken, enough so that it immediately perked the Colonel's ears. "Nasty bit of business, that. A commander shouldn't quarrel openly with the men."

The Commander struggled to come up with a defense, but could find none. "You're right, of course. But what was I to do. For him to challenge me like that. How do I get the men back, Digby?"

"I should say that Space Force men prefer an officer of action, mum. Lead from the front and all that. Show them you still have things in hand and they'll forget all about your little argument with the Chief Engineer. Or something of the sort." Digby trailed off into muttering, the next time he spoke he had returned to his usual contented self. "I suppose I should see that your quarters weren't too badly damaged in the explosion." The ghoul puttered off with his tray before she could respond. Shepard-Dare shook her head but her face cracked a smile.

"Yes, an officer of action." The gears were already turning in her head. She stood and straightened her uniform. "Navigator, set a new course. Once we hit a thirty degree offset from our original course I want a best possible speed burn towards Space Ranger Post Gamma."

"Not continuing on towards Victoria, Ma'am?" The navigator asked as he unfurled out of his chair to face her.

"We've just met a new, likely hostile civilization with advanced technology. The sooner we can get the word out, the better." She tried to inject as much confidence into her words as she could. "The New New California Republic has as much need to know as we do if they turn out to be the vanguard of an alien invasion fleet."

The navigator nodded slowly, the wheels turning in much the fashion his plotter followed when mulling over a particularly complex course. "Yes. And the increased deflection? It would be swifter to travel along our original course, bringing the warning that much faster."

"And risk our pursuers catching us again?" Shepard-Dare replied, quick to the response. "Actually, add some additional low impulse course corrections before we turn over. If they require our impulse trail signature, I want them pointed in the wrong direction."

"At once, ma'am." The Navigator saluted and went about his task with relative enthusiasm. Shepard-Dare allowed herself a little moment of victory. Her foe would have to be very clever if he wanted to catch her.

* * *

"Oh, that is clever. I take back everything I said before, Garrus. I suppose that idea you came up with on Thessia was just a fluke," Tali said playfully, ribbing her nominal captain with an elbow. Garrus for his part played along, putting on a pantomime of mock indignation.

"We agreed never to speak about that little gem of mine," he chuckled. "Besides, this one's going to work. I'm sure of it."

"It'd better," Tali said, running a diagnostic on the quickly patched comm. lines snaking across the war room on last time. "The good techs at Palavan Fleet Yards put a lot of hours into fixing the _Archangel_ after the Citadel. I for one can't wait to watch you try to explain this monstrosity to them if it doesn't work out." She motioned towards the expanded suite of imagers and screens now hanging over the holotable.

"It's going to work," Garrus said confidently. "Is working, actually. Liara, do we have a picture of where we're going yet?"

Across the holotable, the asari information broker looked up from her Omni-tool. "Getting preliminary imagery now. I have to warn you, it's not going to look pretty. This is a lot of data to churn through, even for STARC's processing stacks. It will take up some time to build up a workable resolution." She made a two fingered pushing motion across her wrist and the holotable bloomed to life. The blank projection space filled slowly with brightly coloured dots, at first sparsely spread out, but over time slowly filling in to form an angular cloud.

"So what are we seeing here?" Victus asked from his ground operations console. "looks a little like asari spun sugar."

"What we're seeing here, Sergeant" Liara replied, "Is a visual reconstruction of what we assume is the hostile's home cluster. We're so far from Council Space that we're essentially traveling without a map; no direct imaging of this sensor of this system exists. So, we have to build our own picture; we're pulling every scrap of data we can on it from the archives. Stellar photography, laser comb wobble analysis, even a few minutes on the STG's gravitational lens facility."

Victus chuckled. "But the salarians'll get a nasty shock when their fancy spy satellite starts moving on its own. We're, uh, not going to get in trouble for that, are we?"

"You'd be surprised how many people will agree to look the other way when they see the Head Spectre's command codes on an unscheduled work order." Garrus answered. "Even the salarians. Anyway, what's important is we'll have a map. And if we have a map, we'll know where our new friend is going."

The image hovering over the holotable took a few hours to complete. Garrus watched it slowly resolve from an amorphous blob into a complex five star system, each circled by the courses of likely planets, smaller crisscrosses for the paths of moons, and the outward swirl of an extrasolar asteroid belt light hours across. Around him, officers rotated in and out of the war room. At the three hour mark, the holotable trilled and the model began to spin. Garrus stared at it intently.

"Any insights, Hero of the Galaxy?" Garrus felt the reassuring pressure of his chief engineer lean in against his side. He allowed her to slip under his arm and accepted the dextro ration pack she offered. She sipped her own through a straw. "If you're not done perching, I mean."

"I don't perch," Garrus buzzed indignantly. "But I think I can spare a few insights. One hero to another. STARC, freeze the image and paint in the ship's last known course." The computer complied, drawing a thick red line that skimmed high on the model before intersecting with a bright star that orbited the cluster's central binary pair. "I think it's pretty clear that this system is where the bad guys call home. Two terrestrial planets, a gas giant with a whole gaggle of moons."

"The computer could have told me that, Garrus," Tali teased, burying her masked head in his shoulder. "You're not exactly bringing the wow factor on these predictions. And besides, following him all the way home sounds like a great way of running right into another trap."

"Which is why we aren't following him to his home system," Garrus replied. He sent the ration aside and bent to adjust the imager. The frame shifted, focusing on the leading edge of the cluster's asteroid ring. "We put our speed to use, get ahead of them, somewhere with a nice open engagement area."

"That's an awful lot of space. If we guess wrong, they'll blow right by us and we wouldn't even know it. Wouldn't it be better to back off on this one and gather at least a few more ships? Spectre Vau and his task group are only three jumps away…"

"By the time we come back with a task force, we'll have missed any kind of intercept window. Besides, I know exactly where he's going." Garrus disentangled himself from his mate and leaned over the projection. "He'll go to ground and report in first chance he gets. Here," he swiped a talon through space right at the edge of the asteroid ring. "Large asteroid. Dwarf planet, really. Perfect staging point for a mission outside of the cluster. I'll bet they even launched from there. It'll be two days hard burn to arrive there first, but we can cut them off from whoever they're reporting to."

"And if you're theory is wrong?" Tali asked.

"And if I'm wrong, then we can go fetch Vau. You have my word."

"It'll have to do, I suppose." Tali let out a long and theatrical sigh that set Garrus' mandibles into a turian smile. The lithe mechanic ducked past him and made as if to leave the room. At the door, she turned back. "You know, two days is a long time to sit around waiting for the other shoe to drop. If you can find the time to drag yourself away from the holotable, I think my suits nerve stimulators might be in need of some... calibrations." And with that, she was gone, slinking past the marine guard. Garrus felt his face split into a wide smile as he gave the map just one more look over.

Garrus had never relished the prospect of days under heavy burn. Hours stacked up against each other, the sameness of the engine pitch. His plans were made, and there was little to do but wait out the time when they'd be put into effect. Back before the War he'd trained in the VR, sparred, and thrown himself into work aboard the ship; tuning the guns, drilling the crew. Anything to stave off the boredom and, more importantly keep himself sharp, tough. Of course, time had softened the man the same way it was softening the edges of his crest and the colouration of his plates. He now filled his time between stars with a few more pleasurable dalliances. Sometimes it was good to not have a galaxy to save. As it was, the two days between the aborted chase and his planned intercept passed almost too quickly. The Head Spectre checked the catches on his uniform as he stepped back onto the bridge.

Liara was already at the galaxy map, ever present intelligence drone at her side. She smiled warmly at his approach, the expression almost reaching her eyes this morning. "Garrus."

"Liara," Garrus stepped up beside her and motioned towards the inky black projection hanging over the command podium. "This is the feed from our optical sensors?"

The asari nodded and swiped her hand across the image, dragging across a web of orange-red lines that clung to a series of irregular shapes hanging in the space ahead. "This is the beginning of the asteroid belt. No sign of our new friends. I'll continue sweeping for their drive emission signature."

"Good," Garrus looked out over the bridge. A nervous energy buzzed throughout the mixed crew, more so than their first encounter. He supposed the first time they'd been facing a mystery. Now they were riding into battle. "Helmsman, initiate stealth operations."

"Acknowledged, Spectre. All external emissions redirected to heat sinks. Tassartras Drive engaged. We are running silent, sir."

"As silent as the first time they spotted us," Liara said in an aside manner. She turned to her captain with a more genuine smile.

"We were much closer that time," Garrus corrected, "this time…" He didn't get to finish his thought. In front of him, the galaxy map flashed a deep crimson.

"Contact!" A crewman called. "Profile matches the ship from before. Bringing it on display now." The map shimmered, a bright speck lost in the gloom leapt to the fore. Garrus recognized the bullet nosed craft immediately.

"See, right where I said it would be. Helmsman, plot an intercept course. The first sign that they've spotted us, disengage stealth and go at a full sprint. Gunnery, I want you working on a firing solution, everything short of painting their hull. I don't want to give them any warning." His orders were met with a series of affirmatives. He turned to his old companion. "Any work so far on deciphering their language?"

"Some small progress, not enough to communicate anything complex."

"We'll take what we can get. Put together a transmission, as close as you can get for a demand to cut engines and surrender." Garrus watched the distance close on the display, the seconds to intercept ticking away. There was a sudden flare in engine activity on the other ship. "Looks like we've been seen. I suppose it was too much to hope. Liara, is our message ready?"

"As ready as it'll ever be. Sending now." She cocked her head to the side. "No response."

"Well, we gave them a chance," Garrus said. "Gunnery, one shot from the secondary battery. Target their engine cone. Aim to disable." He took a second to look around the bridge. The eyes of his crew were on him. "Fire."

The ship shuddered as the wing mounted mass driver launched its tungsten cored payload at a fraction of the speed of light. The sun bright needle glowed in the dark of space as it flew away from them, its point set on the fleeing rocket. At their rapidly closing range, the projectile had only two minutes to fly, a task it did unerringly across the vastness of space until it approached mere meters of its target. It never reached the other ship. Seconds before impact bright light bloomed from the aft of the bullet-nosed rocket and a actinic flash of a powerful energy discharge leapt out towards the incoming slug. It struck just behind the nose, atomizing the needle point and sending the remains of the weapon spiraling into space. The glow of the slug petered out as radiation slowly robbed it of its volcanic heat.

The bridge crew stood silent. Garrus felt his jaw shut with a snap. "Well, that was unexpected. Power up the Thanix cannon. Whatever that was might have been able to deflect a ten centimeter slug, but I doubt they have the ability to bat aside a Reaper killer."

His listened to the gratifying hum of the twin loves of his life come online. He could almost feel the slight vibration as they deployed from their battery two decks below. Usually it was enough to put a smile on his face, whether it was a Reaper on the other side of the guns, or pirates, or mercenaries. Something felt off, this time. Very rarely did Garrus make mistakes when decided when and where to deploy his guns. Somehow, this felt like a mistake.

"Sir, more contacts! Small and fast. Moving towards us!" The sensor officer reported.

"What?" Garrus yelled. "Torpedoes? STARC?"

- **Unlikely. Cross section suggests fast attack craft of some sort**. **They appear to be approaching under their own power and control.-**

The new contacts flashed up on the galaxy map, a ragged formation of tiny dots rapidly moving in from one of the nearby asteroids. They were closing awfully fast. That sick feeling of making a mistake settled again, deep in his gut. He hid the feeling behind a mask of steel. When he spoke, it was in a carefully cultivated tone of command.

"It's a trap."

* * *

Author's Notes:

I want to thank everyone who read and followed the first chapter of this new story. This has been the most successful launch of a Fanfic I've ever had, and I want to thank everyone who made it possible. You guys are great. Next chapter should be up within two weeks, hope you stick around to enjoy it. Now, to answer a few questions submitted by readers.

 **Blinded in a Bolthole:** Without giving too much away, the Arc is actually the end result of the Vault project rather than an extension of it. I believe the whole Vault system was supposed to be testing for a long range voyage should the Earth be unsalvagable. Well, it worked... as far as anything built by Vault-tec works as designed. As too your second question, you'll have to wait and see.

 **Fulcon:** Fallout 4 is definitely considered canon by this work. I imagine the Institute had a hand in getting humanity off the ground, so to speak. And yes, I'll fully admit to the Britishness part. It owes a lot to this work's third, silent influence, Dan Dare (Pilot of the Future!). Not to worry, though, there'll be plenty of more traditional Fallout characters as the story progresses.

-Liddle Out


	3. Chapter 3

**Fallout: Stardust**

* * *

 **Act 1 Issue 3  
**

 **Raiders on the Rim!**

* * *

The contact klaxons blared all along the _Eagle's_ flight deck, bouncing Colonel Shepard-Dare from her quarters. Which was to say, from her hammock. She slipped from the silk cocoon still dressed in her oversized dress uniform, pausing only to pull on her immaculately tailored boots. She dropped to the deck, bouncing slightly in the reduced cruising gravity. She relished her reduced weight for a few moments before the impulse engines spun up to full speed.

"Duty Officer, report!" the Colonel slipped into her command chair. The clinking of cups signaled that her trusted batman had been similarly roused from sleep by the alarms that still sounded throughout the ship. She accepted a fresh cup of tea without comment.

"We're being followed again, ma'am," the first officer reported, turning from his place at the stellarscope. He offered up an easy smile. "Same ship as before. I took the liberty of ordering that we keep our course rather than risk tipping our hand."

"Yes, very good. I have the command, Lieutenant Gordon. Go aft and see if you can't gather up a marine party."

"Planning on being boarded, ma'am?" Gordon asked, his eyebrows rising into his finely coifed blonde hair. "Or doing a little boarding of your own?"

"Always like to keep my options open, Lieutenant," she answered coyly. "Now go on." She watched the older man leave before turning back towards the cockpit and the Navigator's plotter. "Distance and bearing?"

"Close and closing," the Navigator rattled. "Two hundred, on a direct intercept course. At current closing speed they'll be on us in under an hour. We… don't have any other tricks to throw at them this time, do we, ma'am?" The reedy navigator bent at the waist, as if eager for her to contradict him. Sadly, he wouldn't be getting his wish today.

"I'm afraid not, Mr. Carter. We have no choice but to engage them." Her eyes flicked over the space ahead. Nothing but a few isolated asteroids. Not even the big one looked like it would produce enough cover to escape the faster pursuing craft. "Black Cats. Cadet Sprye, bring us to flank speed. No use letting them close the gap without having to work for it. Gunnery Chief, charge the turrets. Best arm the torpedoes as well. All hands to your battle stations!" Behind her the action alarm sounded and the lights shifted from white to bloody red. Under her feet, the ship's mighty impulse cylinders churned. She smiled as she felt the thrill of acceleration move through her. About her the ship jumped forwards with a groan of tortured metal. She patted the plain metal arm rest of her command chair gently, willing the old bird to stay together as Cadet Sprye drove her onwards.

"Energy plume from the pursuing ship!" The sensor officer cried from where he sat bent over his atomograph array. "They're firing on us!"

"What, at this range? They haven't a chance…" Colonel Shepard-Dare began. She was interrupted as the ship shook and the telltale sharp snapping of the tesla barrier going off rang through the hull. Static electricity washed over her as the barrier's backwash seeped from its faulty regulator. "What in the worlds was that?"

"Solid slug, some kind of gauss cannon, by the look of it." The officer said, confirming her suspicions. "I didn't know they could get that fast."

"Clearly our opponents found a way," Shepard said, steepling her fingers and forcing herself to remain outwardly calm. This attacking ship continued to be full of surprises. "We can't hope to return fire at this range. Sprye, begin evasive maneuvers and prepare to bring us about. We can ill afford…" She stopped dead as she caught sight of something out of the forward bubble enclosure. "Black Cats." She whispered.

In front of them the bright sparks of more drives flickered in space. Not the queer, steady light of their pursuers, but the ragged jets of poorly maintained impulse engines. Engines that bad this far out could mean only one thing.

"Dive! Dive and drive heard to port! We've got Raiders!" The word sent a shock of fear through the bridge. The ship heaved as the young pilot at its controls threw her into a steep maneuvering burn. The _Eagle_ dipped just in time to avoid the storm of incoming raider ships. They buzzed by like a horde of needle sharp wasps, their arrow like auguring noses missing their mark by mere meters. They continued on blindly, their pilots either too stupid or else too drugged up to their eyeballs to steer in time to catch the rapidly retreating ship. Shepard-Dare wiped sweat from a suddenly clammy forehead. On the scopes, the raiders continued to shrink into the distance.

"Seems almost too easy, mum," said Digby. Her ghoulish assistant had dived for the deck as the raiders had come in, unfortunately spilling a pot of perfectly good tea in the process. Shepard gave him a sharp look. "'Course, there shouldn't BE any raiders around these parts as it is. The last reports from the Ranger station on the way out was all clear. Checked myself."

"You're right, of course," the Colonel admitted. "A group they missed?" She didn't have a chance to receive an answer, as the contact alarm rang again.

"Contacts front!" the sensor officer cried.

"More of them?" Shepard-Dare stepped out of her command chair to get a closer look. "Can we shake them like we did the last bunch?"

"Odds don't look good, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am." Sprye said dejectedly. His eyes were still pressed to the forward scopes and his hands worked the controls furiously. The ship bucked back and forth as he fought to find a course that would run them clear of their onrushing attackers. "Their burning hard for us, and they're maneuvering too. If they we had spotted them before they we're right on top of us…"

Colonel Shepard-Dare stepped up to the Stellarscope and tugged it down on its mooring. The hazy image of this new group of raiders came into sharp contrast as she twisted the knobs. It looked like there were six, maybe seven of them. They buzzed to and fro too fast to get a good fix. She stuck with one just long enough to make out a black stencil on its spherical hull, almost covered by the crudely daubed paint raiders always seemed to enjoy decorating themselves with.

"B Arcers," she confirmed. "Maintenance section, if their utility pods are anything to go by. They're awfully far from their Hulk. Last I heard it was further spinward."

"They really mean to attack us with maintenance pods!?" Sprye blurted out, momentarily allowing his youthful exuberance to override Space Force professionalism. "They don't even have guns on them."

"They really do," Digby spoke up, his eyes going wide as they did when he dredged up some rotted sector of his ancient memory. "They'll come at us with those four gripping claws. They'll try and tear into the hull and pull us all out there. Then they'll take the ship. I better find my spacesuit!" He abandoned his tea tray to the same pile as his ruined kettle and rushed back toward the rear of the ship.

"We should all suit up, they're nearly upon us," Shepard-Dare said calmly. Already she could see the bright flares of their thrusters with the unaided eye. With no time to lose, she and her crew shrugged into their faded yellow vacuum suits while alarms continued to blare. The thick, rubberized material squeaked under her fingers as she tugged it into place. She left the wide bubble helmet off, instead stowing it under her arm. If the hull was breached, she wanted as much air in the tanks as possible. By the time she returned to the pilot's station, the bright points of incoming drive cones where flaming haloes around a half dozen dark and angry looking specks. "Status?"

"If we burn hard now, we might be able to out accelerate them," Sprye reported. He had his eyes pressed back to the forward scopes, his own helmet cavalierly hung from one of the many levers that covered his console. Dare noted that he'd left his suit unsealed as well, likely in the rush to get back to his station. "If we steepened our dive…"

"Navigator?" Shepard-Dare looked back to Carter's station. The man had his suit sealed up to the neck and the helmet on tight. He shook his head sadly.

"The math's just not on our side. There's not enough time to open up the gap before intercept. It might actually make things worse, this ships defenses just aren't rated for that kind of closing velocity!" The man's voice creaked slightly as he wrung his hands in an uncharacteristic display of panic.

"Well we can't very well go back the way we came," Sprye shot back. The young pilot's face took on a similar livid shade to his hair. Carter stared daggers at his counterpart from behind the plotting console. The air between them felt suddenly alive as if filled with current. The seconds ticked by almost audibly.

"Can't we?" Shepard asked, her voice quietly pensive. She rubbed her chin, the first fragments of a plan knitting themselves together in her mind. She nodded. The idea seemed obvious, now that it had occurred to her. All they had to do was… She came back to the real world of the _Eagle's_ bridge to the dubious stares of both officers. "If we turned over now and kept the engine running by the time we closed to firing range we'd almost be matched in speed. It'd give our guns the best shots, but it would also put our engines between the raiders and the rest of the ship. Not even the most Psycho addled raider pod jockey would ride his ship directly into our impulse exhaust."

"You're right!" Sprye agreed, the gears already whirring behind his eyes. "Might even take a few of them out."

"Good," Shepard gave the young man a firm pat on the shoulder. "The rest of us should get to our guns. We'll need to have our shots lined up as soon as they get in range or they'll swarm us. Come on!" The last call was directed to the crew, who had gathered around in a wide circle just behind the command chair. She delivered it with a flourish she hoped seemed heroic. The crew scattered at her call to arms. She followed closely behind them and headed for her own station in the _Eagle's_ dorsal waist gun.

* * *

"Shift our aim! Fire on the incoming ships," Garrus ordered. His talons gripped the command pulpit's railing as his ship continued to hurtle towards the cloud of unknown contacts. At his gunnery officer's inquisitive look, he clarified. "We can catch them later; focus on the ships moving to attack."

The _Archangel's_ nose shifted almost imperceptibly and the guns in its belly flashed brightly. Twin bright blue lances of molten metal burst forth and for a fraction of a second linked the frigate and one of the small incoming craft with an incandescent thread. The attacker disappeared in a puff of smoke like a moth caught in the path of a blowtorch. It pulsed out twice more in rapid succession, both times catching another of the sharp nosed little ships. They continued on seemingly undaunted by the blistering show of firepower.

"Keep firing!" Garrus ordered as he watched the diffuse cloud of hostile contacts get closer on the holotable. Around him the ship began to rattle as the secondary battery joined its staccato voice to the throaty roar of the Thanix cannon. Outside, the swarm of contacts seemed to be growing in number, rather than shrinking. "Get me a higher resolution image of our attackers." He barked. The image flickered and reassembled itself. A dense crowd of ugly looking, wedge shaped ships stared back at him from the projector, looking for all the galaxy like piles of scrap with engines bolted on. Another one evaporated under the attentions of the wing mounted mass drivers. Its components came apart in a puff of released atmosphere. The shredded wreckage spun wildly in space for a few seconds before they lit little flares of their own.

"They're full of fighters," Liara exclaimed as another broke apart. "Carriers that small? It doesn't make sense. Unless they're continuing their attack with their escape pods."

"I'm getting the sense that this little corner of the galaxy we've wandered into doesn't play by the same rules that we're used to," Garrus mused as his ship played a valiant game of keep away against mobile clan of scrap heaps. A game it appeared to be losing as the strange wedge ships dove madly into her guns. A few of the smaller craft were getting worryingly close. "Gunnery, why has the GUARDIAN system not kicked in?" The Spectre asked, suddenly aware of the missing third voice in his familiar choir of combat. The high pitched whine of discharging lasers was completely absent.

"I'm having trouble getting a lock," the unflappable gunnery officer replied, never taking his eyes from his console. His talons rattled across the keys. "Those ships are emitting heavy radiation, too much to get a precise bead on them."

"By the Goddess, those levels would knock out a krogan," Liara commented. "We'll never get a lock through all that mess."

"We'll have to figure something out fast, they're right on top of us," Garrus grit his needle-like teeth and braced himself for the impact of weapons fire, but none came. Instead, the view through the outside feeds inverted itself as Pilot Subpono threw the ship into a tight corkscrew. His voice crackled back over the intercom.

"Did you see that? Those psychos just tried to ram us. Who rams as their plan A?" The pilot threw the _Archangel_ into a flat spin to avoid more attempted rams. "Uh, I can't have been the only one to see that."

"Roll that image back fifteen seconds," Garrus barked, freezing the display with a gesture. STARC complied, and the outside monitors flickered back, second by second until they froze on the image that had triggered the pilot's outburst. "There's just no way." The image refused to change into something more reasonable. It remained resolutely ridiculous. In the middle of the projection, bracketed by bright flashes of guns and the cold darkness of space, was a giant green man straddling a large engine the way one might ride an antigrav motorpod. Well, it was a close facsimile of what Garrus would call a man. It was wide as a krogan and bulging with muscles that roiled under its unclad skin. It clung to the unshielded nuclear rocket with one hand; the other clutched something that flashed with red light. Most shocking of all, though, was the expression of pure malice in its eyes. The expression that could be seen clearly, because the mad beast wore no kind of helmet of breath apparatus. In fact, its head was completely naked but for an undersized leather cap and wide, rectangular goggles. The beast roared silently in space as the image snapped back to real time. It reared back its thick arm and tossed whatever it was holding at the _Archangel._ Something clanged mightily on the roof above their heads.

"What was that?" Garrus asked, seconds before his ship reeled under a pounding blow. Radiation alarms blared all along the bridge.

- **Minor damage to outer hull plating-** STARC reported. **–No breaches detec… zzzrrrt-** The Vis robotic voice was distorted as more blows smote down on the ship's upper hull, each one making the ship ring like a struck bell. **–zzzrttt… multiple impacts, low yield fission devices-**

"Where are those GUARDIANs?" Garrus said, his mandibles rattling under yet another impact against the hull plating, this time ringing against the ship's underside. "Additional power to the engines, if we hang around inside this cloud of stinging gnats much longer they'll pick us apart." He gripped the rail as the ship shot forward. Their attackers stuck too them like flies, jetting ahead to launch their hit and run attacks. On the outer hull monitors, patches of the hull were beginning to glow a worrying cherry red.

"Point defenses coming on line now, preparing for manual firing," The gunnery officer report. At long last the GUARDIANs began their song and let loose their pent up energies in a storm of light that flashed as it ravenously consumed the detritus of battle that filled the space around them. At first they tore fruitlessly at their targets, the fast moving engine riders staying just seconds ahead of the searching lasers. Another explosion rocked the ship, but this time they were able to respond. Multiple beams converged on one of the flitting target, reducing it to a slightly greasy smear on the fabric of space. The attacking creatures scattered, but they could not move fast enough to escape the GUARDIAN's invisible clutching fingers. The tide was turning in this battle, but the enemy seemed undaunted by the fact. If anything they pressed their attack all the more, some even ramming their ramshackle vehicles into the beleaguered frigate. Unlike their low velocity fission explosives that had failed to trigger the ship's cyclonic defense, these kamikaze attacks crashed headfirst into the kinetic barriers that had held against Collector particle beams. The ship still shuddered under their blows, but the barriers held firm.

"Heh," Garrus straightened and struck a confident pose. "Looks like we've weathered the worst they can bring to bear. Keep up the pressure, Lieutenant." He made a show of brushing off the shoulders of his uniform. "Push ahead and attempt to reacquire our original quarry. We can put the rest of this rabble down on the way out." His crew gave a rousing cheer and again he felt the old tug of battle on the chords of his heart. He smiled as the _Archangel_ resumed its previous course.

"We're not quite out of the asteroid thicket yet," Liara said with concern etched across her face. "Look, there's another group of them, dead ahead." She pointed at the rapidly encroaching pod of enemy ships screaming in on a direct intercept course.

"Dead is right!" Garrus said curtly. "Lieutenant Scopus, target those ships, all guns!"

"Engaging!" The scopes lit up with the flash of lasers as the stoic gunnery officer rushed to swat aside the enemy's last desperate rush. The Thanix cannon briefly illuminated the battle as it swallowed up another of the larger ships while the smaller mass drivers fell silent.

"We're not destroying them fast enough," Liara cried, her usually calm demeanor shattering as the ships projected in the galaxy map bore in ever closer.

"These firing systems were never set up for manual aiming," Lieutenant Scopos shot back. "I can only fire on one target at a time." More ships exploded in brilliant yet short-lived incandescent flowers, but still more joined in the mad rush, peeling off from their shattered retreats to form a solid stream of nuclear fire-driven steel aimed right at his ship's heart. "There's too many of them."

The leading edge of the steel wave rolled over the _Archangel's_ flanks, trailing explosions behind them. The ship shook violently as blow after blow rained on the strained barriers. Sparks flew from conduits and klaxons blared. "Cyclonic barriers failing!" yelled a salarian crewman at the damage control console. Garrus' blood ran cold. Four impacts rang out against the hull. **Krump… Krump… Krump… Krang** With the final impact there was a terrible shrieking tearing noise and the roof over their head buckled inwards, its edges aglow. The air pressure dropped precipitously until emergency barriers slammed into place. When the pressure returned it brought with it the howling of radiation alarms and an acrid smell. Protruding into the CIC was a crumpled cone of scrap metal braced with what looked like it could be concrete. Outside the sound of battle fell silent.

"Is everyone all right?" Garrus asked, dragging himself from where he'd fallen into the galaxy map projection pit. The map itself appeared to have shorted out, although it continued to half-heartedly attempt to project an image of the surrounding space into the smoke filled air. Someone close by groaned out in pain. Garrus gripped the projector rim and hauled himself out onto the deck. His gunnery officer sat sprawled out, still at his station, a foot long bit of piping pinning him to the chair. Garrus crawled over to him, avoiding the still steaming wreckage strewn across the floor. "Lieutenant?"

The mortally wounded officer looked blearily over his shoulder. Dark blue blood stained his uniform. "Missed that one, eh Spectre?" He coughed wetly and took a shallow, rattling breath.

"Save your strength, Lieutenant. You did your duty," Garrus replied. His heart wasn't in it. He'd seen soldiers walk away from grisly wounds that beggared belief, but this was certain to be the stoic gunner's last battle. Garrus laid a taloned hand on the young man's shoulder as he breathed out one last time and lay still. "Spirits take you, soldier."

One the other side of the bridge there was a rushing roar and whoosh of spray as someone let loose with one of the hand held fire suppression unit. Garrus looked over to see Sergeant Victus struggling to put down a bright jet of flame that had sprung up from a smoking tangle of exposed wiring. The Spectre hobbled over a snatched up another burnt orange cylinder, turning the nozzle on the billowing flame. Between them they managed to contain the blaze. A third torrent joined them, finally forcing back the sputtering flame until it guttered and died. Garrus wiped soot from his crest and handed off the extinguisher to a crewman. "You know, Liara, I'm starting to reconsider going back and contacting Spectre Vau."

A crash sounded from the ship lodged in their hull. Garrus, Liara, and Victus spun around as one to see the reinforced metal peel back like an insects shed cocoon. Garrus felt his jaw drop as incredulity broke out across his face. Emerging from the split hull of the enemy ship was another of the massive green beasts, easily two and a half meters tall. It's bald, lumpy head brushed the ceiling as it took a thudding step forwards. It roared incoherently and reached behind it dragging from its boarding pod a hammer that looked like it weighed as much as one of his marines. Garrus ignited his omni-blade.

* * *

Colonel Shepard-Dare ascended the ladder two rungs at a time, the strains of strings and brass almost audible in her ears. Action, at last. Her stomach lurched from the nervous energy that spiraled through her, or perhaps that was just crossing the threshold of the ship's gravity field. She floated free in the ball turret's close quarters and gracefully flipped head over heels into the steel bucket that served as the gunner's chair. She grabbed ahold of the firing handles of the sturdy quad-barreled plasma cannon and flipped the trigger paddles out of their safe position. The weapon responded under her touch, its electric actuators humming loudly as she ran it through a testing pattern. She smiled as she noted the spare fusion cores racked below her feet. The voice of Cadet Sprye crackled in her ear.

"Braking complete, the enemy are right on top of us!" The ship shook slightly as the engines disengaged. Shepard-Dare racked the charging handle on her turret gun. And stamped on the traversal pedal. She swung into battery just in time to see the first utility pod crest the horizon of the _Eagle's_ drive cone. This one was painted a violent riotous red. The ovoid pod reached out menacingly with its pair of double clawed arms. Shepard-Dare smiled a feral grin and hammered down on the triggers. The quad barrels jumped to life with tooth rattling force, spitting deadly gobbets of blinding green plasma. They intersected with the pod in an incandescent explosion that shattered the eggshell thin skin of the raider ship.

"Got one!" Shepard cried out jubilantly. A wave of embarrassment followed the rush of adrenaline and she found herself looking around the turret sheepishly. "I mean, target eliminated." A chorus of voices reported similar news as the gun crews swatted away at the swarming raiders. Another two pods tore into view, their engines flaring brighter than could be safe. Shepard-Dare's business like mask slid back into place and she flew into a flurry of motion. Once again streamers of ionized gas leapt out from the _Eagle_ in search of their foes. These pilots were cannier opponents, or at least had replaced a lower percentage of their bloodstream with Psycho, because they juked and dove out of the way of the plasma fire.

It was all the Colonel could do to keep the bobbing and weaving ship away from the _Eagle_ as they danced back and forth across her scopes. Shepard-Dare chased it with her crosshairs, stamping on her pedals and driving the overworked turret actuators at a frantic pace. The space outside the ship was alight with plasma as she and her fellow waist gunners tracked their marks through the Great Beyond. Above her there was an explosion as another of the attackers' luck ran out. The gunner on number two turret whooped. The Colonel swung around on one of her own targets; a stark green pod that looked like it was limping from shrapnel damage. It disintegrated into glowing slag as she sent bolt after bolt of actinic plasma into its darkened ovoid viewport. The low power warning on her gun flashed twice, accompanied by a harsh shrieking buzzer. Dare ejected the spent fusion core with practiced graze and slammed another home.

A tremor passed through the hull as one of the things managed to grab purchase. Shepard-Dare could almost feel the pneumatic pincers close down on the _Eagle's_ hull plating and begin to peel away at the outer plating.

"Sprye! Roll the ship and full steam ahead!" She ordered. Her words came too late. There was a sharp pop and a feeling of fingers grasping at her space suit as the air rushed out into space. The atmosphere light on the panel behind her blinked off. The Colonel prayed that the young cadet had had the good sense to put his helmet on and waited. Behind her, the sounds of tearing metal continued, thin sounding in the draining air. With a burst of speed and a rush of maneuvering thrusters that felt like a kick in the pants, the _Eagle_ leapt into a barrel roll. So Sprye was still alive. Or at least his relief was. Shepard allowed herself a small smile and readied her gun. The sounds of tearing stopped, replaced by the tinny clangs of something rolling across her hull. The stars whirled about her and her thumbs fluttered on the triggers. Then it came, bouncing into view, the pod that had wounded her ship.

It was a round, banded ovoid like the rest. This one was painted with the stylized image of a dragon, its jaws wrapped around the viewport as if it was a window down the beast's throat. Colonel Dare could have sworn she saw a flash of the pilot as she thumbed the firing switch. Bright light connected the two ships for a fraction of a second before the pod's side was ripped open. A glancing blow, but enough. A fuel tack must have ruptured, because a bright jet of flame flew sideways from the wounded craft, throwing it madly about as the pilot tried to keep it on track. His efforts were inadequate. The ship spiraled off and away from her to die in the cold of space. But Shepard didn't have time to watch it go; at least four more ships were still out there seeking to tear her command down to scrap. She tracked on of them until it slipped around the curve of the engine and out of her view. Not out of danger, though.

"That'll show the blighter!" Digby roared. "And here's another one. Come on then!" Another explosion, followed by a juddering blow. "Oh dear, that one seems to have hit the engine cone."

"Situation report," Shepard-Dare spluttered.

"She'll hold together, despite your best efforts," Chief Engineer Turque cut in. "We'll need to haul over for repairs sooner rather than later, but I can keep her in the sky." He cut the link curtly.

Shepard let loose a sigh of relief, a feeling reinforced by the explosion of the last ship. "Good," she responded, "Gunners, continue your sweeps for the moment until we've passed beyond the threshold of the asteroid belt. Boarding team, stand down and begin damage control. Good job people." She allowed herself to sink back into the unyielding frame of her gunner's chair and attempted to run a hand through her air only to be arrested by the glass of her bubble helmet. She shook her head, giggling nervously.

"Colonel.. zrrt.. ..ore, inc…" Sprye's voice was distorted, almost indecipherable through the ship's internal radio.

"Say again, Cadet." Colonel Shepard-Dare said. At once the feeling of relief was dashed aside. "Cadet Sprye, repeat your last transmission!" She was about to hop out of her chair and drop back onto the bridge to get his report directly when his voice cleared, punching through the static.

"…kkzrrt… ..zzComing right for you!"

Shepard looked up with a look of shock and horror. The dragon painted pod was back, but it wasn't alone. Shepard-Dare cursed her foolishness. How could she have missed something so obvious? Attached to the Dragon pod by its grasping claws was the last undamaged raider, clasped crossways so that its madly working thruster worked counter to its leader's still burning fuel tanks. The Dragon pod drove in at her with barely controlled abandon. Shepard-Dare stamped on the traversal pedal to bring her gun into line, but it was too late. She got one, maybe two shots off, enough to shatter the stricken second pod but not enough to stall its mad hijacker. The two ships crashed into the hull just above her ball turret, tearing into the steel and warping its socket hard enough to stick it in place. The Colonel emptied the fusion core into the second pod in the hopes of sparking a secondary explosion but all she managed to do was blow it away, freeing up the Dragon pod's other claw. The pod hammered down on her turret, and with a sickening lurch Shepard-Dare saw the glass give way.

The thick glass popped as if it were no more substantial than a soap bubble and what little air was left in the ship fizzled out into vapour. Shepard-Dare was plucked free from her seat as a flurry of glass shards cut away her restraints. The raider pod bore down on her, its double jointed claws reaching in through the broken remains of the turret. Through the viewport, Shepard could see the outline of its pilot illuminated by the wild blue flames. She ducked to the left, barely scraping out of the way of his swing. The arm's elbow swung back unexpectedly, catching her in the helmet. The blow knocked her back into her seat and jarred her teeth. A hairline crack opened in her helmet. She would have to finish this fast.

She ducked another swing and this time she was ready for its return attack. She leapt over the arm and somersaulted in zero gee, activating her magnetomatic boots to drop back down onto the ruin of her turret gun. She reached for her weapon belt and drew out her Ripper from its lacquered scabbard. Almost as long as her arm and fringed with carbide laced teeth, the weapon was leaps and bounds ahead of its re-purposed forestry tool of an ancestor. She revved the fusion motor and felt the weapon thrum to life in her hand. She blocked the pod's next strike with a two handed counter, deflecting it into the cabling that powered the turret's motors. It lodged there, sparking madly. Shepard-Dare didn't give the raider a chance to escape. She stepped up onto the lodged arm and swung down upon its circular joint. The teeth of her Ripper screamed in the vacuum and skittered against the reinforced bearings. She swung again and this time she caught the corner, biting deep into the metal with intent to sever the limb from her ship and send the pod tumbling into space.

The raider pilot had other ideas. Before the Colonel could react, he flexed the arms of his pod, replicating in effect a vicious headbutt with the upper hull of his utility pod. The effect of the painted dragon's jaws rushing in towards her was disconcerting in the extreme. She flung herself backwards just in time to avoid being crushed, but at the cost of slamming hard against the outer ring of the ladder well. Pain arched through her back and made lights flash before her eyes. The Dragon came down again, bashing against the already warped struts of the turret as if it were trying to bury itself in the skin of her ship. The oval viewport stopped mere inches away from Shepard's face. She got a brief flash of the pilot. He was naked to the waist, his legs wrapped in the tattered remains of a bright orange flight suit. A shock of black hair shot up from behind a close-fitting oxygen mask painted to bear a resemblance to the Old World hockey masks the degenerates on the ring favoured. The pod rose again. If it fell a third time, it would spell an end for Shepard. Not that she'd let that happen. Shepard leapt to her feet and kicked off the rim of the ladder with her Ripper stretched out before her. She met the pod in mid descent and felt the whirling blade take hold in the armoured glass. The viewport exploded outwards, knocking aside the buzzing weapon and sucking the pilot out with it. The heavyset man crashed into the skipper with an impact that knocked the wind out of both of them. They tangled together in the null space between their two ships, flipping end over end as they sailed towards the ladder well. Artificial gravity tugged at them and they were drawn inexorably down until they landed with an ungainly crash in the middle of the bridge.

Startled onlookers spun around, still flush with their apparent victory. Shepard was first to her feet, brandishing her Ripper in a saber guard, just like her grandfather had instructed. The raider pilot gained his feet with considerably less great, his exposed skin wracked with ugly bruises where the vacuum tugged at it. He seemed to smile behind his painted mask and slammed on power-fisted hand into his other meaty palm.

"No one touch him!" Shepard-Dare ordered. "This one's mine!"

* * *

Author's Notes:

Sorry this one was delayed a little. You can all blame X-Com 2 for that, and definitely not me procrastinating. Yes. As it stands, this is likely the last chapter of Stardust until March, as Interloper has the next spot in my writing queue. I'll see you all then! Until then, I have a poll of sorts for you. I know a lot of Mass Effect fics like to run a Codex of sorts alongside the main story. I've taken to rigging up a few entries myself, just for my own reference, but if there's call for it I'll polish them up and post them down here in the notes section. Let me know what you think.

 **TheNoWhereMan:** Glad you think so. I've had this kind of 'Duelling Protangonists' idea rattling around in my head for a while and I'm glad the execution seems to have gone over well so far.

 **HakiriNiwa:** Why thank you. I hope you continue to enjoy it as the story carries on.

 **5 Coloured Walker:** How's that for instant gratification. I can't promise same day postings for every review, of course.

-Liddle Out


	4. Chapter 4

**Fallout: Stardust**

* * *

 **Act 1, Issue 4  
**

 **Taking a Breather**

* * *

Colonel Shepard-Dare stood across from her foe. The massive raider rippled before her, his muscles swelling as something bubbled behind his painted hockey mask. The power fist wrapped around his forearm hissed with a release of high pressure steam. For her own part, Shepard-Dare clamped down on the throttle of her Ripper. The teeth of the long chainsaw blade rattled to life as the motor roared. She flourished the humming blade in an unmistakable challenge. "Come on then," She muttered. The two of them circled each other on the deck of the _Eagle_ , Shepard with the grace of a trained duelist, her foe with lumbering footsteps that almost shook the deck plates.

Shepard was the first to strike, lashing out at the raider's unclad chest. The raider reeled back out of range of her lunge and came back with a wide swing. Shepard ducked, barely avoiding the crack of the power fist's hydraulic plate. Her attempted follow-up was slapped away with a casual backhand to the chest. The blow drove the air from her lungs and sent her skittering across the deck plates on her rump. She shuffled backwards as the raider gave his own follow-up. His fist drove through the metal grille, crumpling the metal between her feet. Quickly she gained her feet and parried another blow, this one aimed at her head. The Ripper's teeth shrieked against the power fist's chassis. Before the raider could recover, she grasped her sword with two hands and swiped across at the raider's other arm, biting deep into the space-bruised flesh. Blood splattered the deck and boots of the two combatants.

The raider roared and struck out with his wounded arm. Shepard-Dare had no time to dodge this time, and the monstrous pilot got his meaty fist around her throat. She tried to escape, wriggling in his grip. Her efforts where fruitless against the titanic grip of her opponent as she was lifted into the air and driven backwards across the bridge. Her bones creaked and stars lit before her eyes as the raider smashed her against a steel bulkhead. Her Ripper dropped to the deck plate where it slowed to an idle.

"Colonel!" The rough timbred voice of her ghoulish manservant called from across the bridge. "I'll fix him up, mum!"

Shepard-Dare focused past the hulking beast that had her pinned to a wall and saw her space-suited batman pushing his way past the stunned and gaping bridge crew with his trusty laser rifle up and ready. She shooed him away with a dismissive snort that was choked off by the tightening grip of the raider. He raised his mighty power fist above his head, ready to bring it down on her head. Behind his mask, the raider's eyes were wide, the pupils shrunken to tiny points. Shepard-Dare's mind raced as the fist began to come down, her own eyes darting about. She gripped at the bleeding wrist that held her but could not peel away the thick fingers. Inspiration struck just before the hydraulic assisted blow. She planted her boots against the raider's chest and pushed hard. For just a second, the grip around her neck loosened, but it was enough. She grabbed the assailant's massive thumb and wrenched it aside with all her might, earning herself a precious breath of air. Emboldened, she threw her weight aside and slipped from the raider's grasp. Surprised by the sudden disappearance of his trapped prey, the raider was unable to pull his punch. With an almighty **Krang** , the power fist impacted with the bulkhead, imbedding itself and lodging in the crumpled metal. Shepard-Dare scuttled over to her dropped weapon and leaped to her feet as the monster tried to pull its hand from the wall. She swung at his head in a flashing arc, neatly decapitating him. The bridge was filled with a stunned silence as the Colonel thumbed off her now bloody weapon.

"Well, that seems to have sorted him," She rasped with a voice that almost matched that of Digby. She massaged her throat with a wince. "Are we clear of them?"

"Uh, yes, ma'am," Lieutenant Gordon was the first to speak. "Scopes show no further raiders ahead, and those that fell behind are still harrying our pursuers." The blond mopped second officer stepped up to catch his commander as her footing faltered slightly.

"Oh, good. I suppose we should be on our way, yes?" She asked. The adrenaline of combat was gone, leaving her the weaker for it. "Lay in a course, Lieutenant. The Ranger's shall want to hear about a nest of raiders this close to their station."

"Right away, ma'am," Gordon answered. He tossed his head to two crewman loafing about just beyond the ruin the raider pilot had made of the deck plates. "Right then, as the skipper orders, men!" The men scurried off and the rest of the crew floated back to their posts as once again the mighty impulse drives chugged to a start. "Do you think that other ship will have any luck with their own raiders, ma'am?"

"Oh, I don't think we'll be seeing them again," Shepard-Dare answered ruefully as she shuffled alongside the other officer towards her command chair. Somewhere above, an engineer must have already thrown up a patch over her busted ventral turret, because her facemask flexed with the return of air pressure. She gladly doffed the badly scuffed helmet as the 'Doc ran up to fuss over her. "They may be smart enough to sneak up on us, but no one takes on super mutants and walks out with all their limbs."

* * *

Garrus Vakarian half sat, half collapsed atop his slain opponent. The giant green mound of tumorous muscle and flesh still steamed where it had been punctured over and over again by flash formed diamond. The well-worn turian nursed his shattered right arm with an air of aggrieved annoyance. Wounds he was no stranger to, he had suffered far worse in his time fighting the Reapers. His old bones ached surely enough on their own that a few new fractures barely added to things. What really bothered him these days were the long hours spent in the medlab after all the noise was done.

"I don't know what these things are," he groused, wincing as one of his marine medics pumped the cracked bones full of biofoam. "But I think I hate them." He brushed the medic off with a wave of his battered talons.

"I can't help but agree with you," His equally damaged second in command spoke up from where she leaned against a bent railing. While Liara T'Soni's biotic barriers had saved her from the worst of the bizarre rocket hammer's meteoric strikes, it had not been enough to prevent the blizzard of metal splinters thrown up by its backswing from creasing her ribs. "Whatever these things are, if just one of these things can do this to the _Archangel,_ then a whole system full of them… it doesn't bear to mention. This might just be the single largest threat since the fall of the Reapers."

"And that might be understating it," Garrus replied. "You were right to advise setting a course back to Spectre Vau. In fact, might be that isn't going far enough. I fear the Fleet will need to hear of this." He sighed and hauled himself to standing. "I didn't come here to start a war." He cleared a handful of cabling away from his command pulpit and brought up navigation. The command board flickered a little before the damaged relays stabilized. "Come on, let's get out of here." He gave one last look to the disappearing glimmer of the retreating ship he'd chased into this viper's pit. He memorized the lines of that cursed ship, etched them in his memory. They'd not get away with this; that much he swore. The starfield turned about his ship as the thrusters sputtered back to life under what was sure to be the severe admonishment of his chief engineer. Then, with a flicker of light and radiation, the ship was gone.

* * *

"Head Spectre Vakarian. Always an honour. Would like to invite you aboard my ship, if you would be so obliged. Current state of the _Archangel_ … not ideal for meetings, plannings," the salarian on the screen unleashed as a single torrent of words. His wide black eyes blinked as he appeared to prepare another salvo. Garrus raised a claw.

"Spectre Vau, my crew and I would be happy to join you aboard the _Kirrahe_. Just as soon as the wounded are unloaded." He replied, trying to edge his words in while remaining diplomatic. The salarian seemed to catch the point for once.

"Yes, of course. Our forward docking tube has been prepared for your ship. We will have medical teams and additional damage control personnel waiting by the doors. Vau out." The reserve holo display deactivated with a snap as the connection dropped. Garrus let out a relieved sigh as the image was replaced with an exterior view, Vau's cruiser already looming closer as the navigator nudged the _Archangel_ in towards the extended docking tube. Really, the _Kirrahe_ was a marvel of engineering. Salarian built and crewed, the cruiser was fully stealth capable, it's flowing hull guiding both eyes and LADAR away from its mass. It was said that fully powered, it would show up with the cross-section of a fighter to even the most advanced sensors in the Turian Fleet, and with emissions even less than that. And it was wholly owned and operated by the Spectre Peacekeeping Forces, the fist ship of its size to be so. Looking at it always filled Garrus with pride. It was a shame about its captain, though.

"Not thinking of leaving the _Archangel_ behind now that she's not the latest thing, are you Vakarian?" Slender, three fingered hands wrapped themselves around his midsection from behind. "I even here the _Kirrahe's_ got a quarian in engineering, a pretty young thing. _Vas Rannoch_."

Garrus chuckled at the possessiveness in his engineer's tones. "Don't you worry. You know I'd never leave the old girl behind for a newer model. Too many memories, even if she's a little dinged up." He ran a claw across the buckled ceiling girder that marked the entry point of the suicide mutant's boarding pod. He hissed as the arms tightened around his waist. "By which of course I mean the _Archangel_ , It is of course a given that I'd never give up my own little part of the Migrant Fleet. I'd be much too intimidated." He gripped the quarian's exosuited hands and slipped them of his waist until the two of them stood face to face. "Besides, you know I have no patience for dallying with children."

"I'd noticed," Tali replied, her bright eyes narrowing almost unperceptively. "Still, sometimes these 'children' have good ideas. I've been meaning to talk with you about a few upgrades, while we have techs putting the deck plates back together."

"Whatever you think is best," Garrus said, looking back over to the _Kirrahe_. "But you'll have to ask Vau yourself, they're his techs. Over dinner perhaps." He offered light heartedly. Tali slapped at him playfully.

"You turian tyrant," she joked, poking him hard in the thorax. The Head Spectre winced as the hammer wound twinged. "Fine, but you're doing at least half the talking. I'm not going to a dinner if the food has to go cold on the plate before I can take a bite." She let go of his hands as the docking klaxon sounded. "Shall we?" The ship shuddered as the clamps got a good lock. The Quarian gestured towards the forward air lock.

Relenting, Garrus flattened his dress uniform and strode forward. Sergeant Victus and a brace of his marines fell in behind him. The NCO hadn't left his side since the fight with the massive boarder, much to the elder turian's chagrin. Even now his master of marines scanned the ship, vigilant against whatever threats he imagined lurked there. Not that Garrus could blame him. He himself found his eyes wandering over familiar hallways searching for threats. Those were the days he often ended with half a bottle of fine Palavan Brandy, reminding himself that the Reapers were gone, their indoctrinated agents no longer the ever-present threat they used to be.

"Head Spectre Vakarian," The soft salarian voice broke him from his reverie. He quickly snapped out a salute in answer to the junior Spectre standing in the docking tube. The group stepped aside as stretcher carriers began to stream past across the narrow steel and glass void bridge.

"Spectre," He responded, "I have a few unmovable cases. Make sure that your med bay has a few teams ready to come aboard the _Archangel_ once we've got our wounded out." As if to underline his words, a stretcher bearing a covered body passed between them. The bearer shook his head sadly. Garrus laid a hand on the young man's shoulder and muttered a few comforting words. The younger medic shrugged the Spectre's claws away and pushed the anti-grav stretcher onwards. The salarian Spectre nodded eagerly.

"Oh course, sir. We already have teams prepping with the engineers."

Another stretcher floated past, its anti-gravs taxed by its occupant. The regulation medbay sheet barely covered the bruised green flesh of the strange boarder. The salarian blanched. "What is this… thing?" He tried to edge away from the hulking corpse.

"A most intriguing specimen," answered the salarian pushing the stretcher. His wide grey eyes blinked twice. "While the scientific research facilities of the _Archangel_ are limited, I've already begun preliminary investigations. It seems the creatures that attacked us are surprisingly simple organisms. Why…"

"Thank you, Doctor Wiks," Garrus intercepted the elderly researcher before he could unravel a yarn that would put the commander of the _Kirrahe_ to shame. "I have my own question, though. Why is it going aboard ahead of our walking wounded?" He gestured with his head towards the now stalled queue of battered turians. The doddering salarian quavered slightly before setting his jaw.

"Why, Spectre, I thought it more important that we know our enemy. In war, actionable intelligence…"

Garrus cut him off again. "We are not at war, Doctor. This was a skirmish with an unknown species, nothing more." He pulled the stretcher aside and waved his wounded men on. They stumbled back into motion as Padok Wiks muttered darkly, dragging his intriguing specimen behind him and muttering darkly.

"You shouldn't be so hard on him," Tali whispered aside. "He's had so little to do since the end of the war. It's been hard for all of us to go from heroes out saving the galaxy to surveyors and peacekeepers putting out brushfires." The way she stressed ' _us_ ' left no doubt as to Garrus' own inclusion in that accusation. The turian felt his hackles lower as mild embarrassment replaced righteous indignation.

"I suppose you are right. I will apologize when I get the chance. But for now I stand by what I said. Casualties come first while at peace. And we are at peace, raiders or no. I am sure that this is the action of pirates, not a hostile government."

"Pirates that freely nuke garden worlds, though?" Tali didn't seem convinced.

"Really nasty pirates," Garrus said darkly. The stream of wounded had slowed to a trickle, with engineers now coming the other way. "I suppose we can't put this off any longer. If we want to catch this pirate, we'll need some reinforcments. Well, Spectre, show us the way to your captain."

* * *

"…and that's when the raiders boarded my ship. It's all in my report of course, but I thought of a few additions on the flight over. Sir." Colonel Shepard-Dare finished, standing smartly at attention before the bored looking New New California trooper. The glass helmeted man seemed unimpressed as he made a show of entering the additions into his terminal.

"Will that be all, Colonel, is it?" He droned, looking up from his work.

"Erm, yes. I think," Dare said, suddenly unsure of herself. "Unless you'd like me to go back over my tactical assessment of the pursuing ship." She added brightly. "I think I remember a few additional points on their close in gunnery."

"That won't be necessary," the trooper said quickly, scooping up the Colonel's report printouts and shuffling into a dirty manila folder. "Please be seated, a Ranger will see you shortly." He shoved the thick folder into an overstuffed filing cabinet that looked like it had started life in some RobCo warehouse more than a century ago, and had obviously seen better days. The man went back to looking dead ahead, ignoring the young woman in the dress uniform standing before him.

"Yes, well, alright," She said. She stepped back out of the queue already forming behind her. Prospectors, long haul caravanners, the ship captains of a half dozen government's merchant marine, all of them stood in line for this single sleepwalking soldier. Shepard scanned the long row of empty booths that would have easily handled this small crowd had they been staffed and quirked her head inquisitively. The clerk at the desk made a none too polite shooing motion. Seeing no other option, the commander of the _Eagle_ took her seat in a worn out chair beside her constant companion. The ghoul leaned over in his chair.

"Tea, mum?" He proffered the upturned lid of his ever-present vacuum flask. Shepard accepted the cup gladly as her ghoulish batman popped the cap on the flask with a hollow thunk and poured a small portion of his potent brew out into the handled lid before passing the steaming drink to his commander. Shepard-Dare took the drink thankfully and sipped quietly from the dark brown brew as the line continued to grind slowly past her. For what seemed like hours, she and her ghoul adjutant sat waiting, the barely moving line slowly shortening. They were almost out of tea when a small side door opened. Dare's eyes snapped up from the sheaf of administrative reports that Digby had produced from somewhere and focused on the new arrival. A blonde haired woman in simple tan uniform had stuck her head out, her blue eyes scanning from behind thin framed spectacles. They alighted on Shepard and her companion with a flash of recognition.

"Colonel Shepard-Dare of Her Majesty's Space Force?" The blonde asked in a bubbly voice that set the Colonel's teeth on edge. "Ranger Corry will see you now."

Shepard-Dare near leapt to her feet at the announcement, upsetting her cup of tea. Digby caught it expertly before it could spill. "Yes, I am she. I mean, that is me. I am Colonel Shepard-Dare." She ran a hand through her dark brown hair self-consciously. "Wish me luck, Dig." She strode across the cramped waiting room, trying to ignore the looks she was getting from the poor sods still in line. That same trooper was still keeping his lonely vigil behind the sole open booth. The New New California women motioned for her to step inside, stepping back to allow her entry to the open side door. Beyond was another long corridor of dirty glass doors and grubby walls papered over with decorations that looked like they'd be more at home on Old Earth than on the Space Ranger's asteroid base. Her guide stopped before a door left slightly ajar. Neatly stenciled atop the frosted glass pane was a name. Ranger Captain Corry.

"Right this way, Miss," The woman who had lead her here said with a gesture towards the door. Shepard-Dare nodded her thanks and pushed aside the slightly creaky door. The office beyond was spartanly decorated, the bare steel walls adorned only with a few certificates and awards. This looked more like it belonged on a space station, if one discounted the rickety wooden desk and chair in the center of the room. Shepard's eyes flicked to the hulking form hunched in the corner of the cramped office. A suit of power armour, expertly cared for if her eyes did not deceive her, and painted in the lavender on lime livery of the NNCR Space Rangers. A sound of a throat being cleared almost made her jump. There was a man sitting in the chair behind the desk, somehow having gone unnoticed as she walked into the room. Shepard-Dare felt her face colour a little as she took in his broad, handsome features and serious countenance.

"Colonel Isabella Shepard-Dare?" The man asked, shuffling through the thick sheaf of reports almost overflowing the basket perched on the edge of his desk. "Any relation to the famous Daniel Dare?"

"My grandfather," the colonel answered quickly. "It's the same _Eagle_ , too. I'd like to thank you're quartermaster for putting her up for repairs."

"It was the least I could do," the square jawed ranger said as his face split into an easy grin. "My people dropped the ball on those Raiders moving into our protection zone. Way I figure it; I owe you a bit more than a tune up and a patch job for putting them down. Atom knows I don't have the rangers to spare hunting every band of scavengers picking their way through the outer belts." He gestured for the chair sitting in front of his desk as if inviting her to take a seat.

"So you've had more problems with the raiders recently?" Shepard-Dare asked as she carefully shifted a further stack of paper from the steel chair and sat down. "I thought the New New California Republic had a fairly firm grip on the Rim."

"We did until recently, I'm afraid. This area had been declared clear until the break-up of Hab Ring B1. A lot of Raiders called that hunk of junk home, now they've nowhere to go but straight through our little patch of space. Not that Command has reacted to that little reality yet. I've got a backlog of unfilled requests for fresh troops. Maybe this new bunch of guys showing up on the scene might get someone back on Aradesh to pay attention for once."

"You're awfully open about this kind of thing," Isabella said. "I'd heard that the NNCR stayed pretty tight lipped about their military operations."

"I guess things out here break you down a little," Ranger Corry replied with a slight chuckle. He riffled through what Shepard-Dare recognized as her own report again and pulled out a printout of her stellarscope imagery. The grainy image of the hawk-like alien craft stood out against the dark background. "Now this, this is going to get a lot of people talking all over the Cluster. And you say that this ship was working with the raiders?" With that sentence, the ranger's temperament changed as if a switch had been flipped. Gone was the easy going smiling Space Ranger. In his place sat a rigid and professional officer.

"It definitely seemed that way," She replied. "After clashing at the munitions dump, I ordered my ship to take an off-axis approach back into the system. Without forward scouts, it's unlikely that they would have found us as fast as they did. That and the Raider attack launching at the same time the new ship caught up to us confirms it. I think."

The burly Space Ranger leaned back in his chair and scratched at his chin. "I can definitely see that interpretation. We'll call it our worst case scenario. One ship is a little small for an invasion fleet, must be a scout or some kind of infiltrator. Stirring up trouble on the Rim, could cause a lot of trouble for us if we leave it." The man leaned forward again and pulled across his terminal to tap in a string of commands. "The subject of another report, I suppose. Thank you for bringing this to our attention."

"That's it?" Shepard-Dare asked, somewhat taken aback.

"That's it," Ranger Corry replied. "I'm sorry, but there's not a huge amount I can do with my available manpower. We've seen a lot of growth out here, prospectors and colonists all. Policing them, keeping the raiders down, and now this? I'm afraid the NNCR is frankly swamped out here." The Ranger stood and extended his hand. Shepard-Dare joined him in rising and shook the proffered hand. "Actually, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask one more thing of you. There are a few major settlements scattered about out here. I know some of them are going to be a little out of your way, but they need to be warned that there's a new threat out here. I don't suppose you'd be willing to warn them, get them at least thinking about going on a defensive footing?" He gave her a winning smile as he held onto her hand a little longer than she was entirely comfortable with.

"I suppose I'll need to resupply," She answered carefully. She dreaded to think about how her crew would react to being asked to spend even another week out in space. Then again, she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she let the outer Rim burn to avoid a couple of terse words with her subordinates. "You wouldn't happen to know of anywhere convenient for me to put into port on my way back home, would you?" She attempted a smile of her own.

"I think I can find a few ports able to accept the _Eagle_ for refit," Corry replied, taking her drift. "I'll have to warn you, it might keep you out for a little while longer. But isn't that a price worth paying for a safe and comfortable trip? I'd like to think so." The Ranger sat again, tapping new commands into his terminal. Somewhere in the back of the office, a print machine began clattering loudly. "Here we are. These are a few excellent places to go in for a short overhaul. I imagine you could get a steep discount if you told a few war stories on your way out. Maybe mention your adventures with the raiders?"

"I think that can be arranged. I know my aide to be a talented storyteller," Isabella replied, taking the proffered printout. The names crisply printed on the yellowed paper were unfamiliar to her, but that was a job for her Navigator. Selling so many stops would be difficult, of course. Such difficulties were banished from her mind by the flashing image of that hawk ship swooping down on unprepared homesteaders, raiders and super mutants descending in their wake. Isabella suppressed a little shudder. "Thank you, Ranger. You stay safe out here, those colonists, prospectors, and caravanners are counting on you."

"And the same to you, Colonel. And don't you worry about me. It takes more than a rabble of scavengers to take down the New New California Space Rangers." The man took the Colonel's arm and led her from his office. Digby stood at the door with an air of barely disguised impatience. His leprous face split in a wide grin that rapidly faltered as his commander walked out on the arm of the NNCR man. Something sounding suspiciously uncharitable found its way to the ghoul's lips, earning him a sharp look from Dare.

"Message from the _Eagle,_ mum," Digby said, his ghoulish rasp more pronounced than usual. "Chief Engineer Turque is anxious to put back to space now that the hull's space worthy again. Says he don't like the yanks crawlin' around in his engine spaces."

Colonel Shepard-Dare felt her face heat as she dropped the arm of Ranger Corry. "You'll forgive Digby. He often speaks more bluntly than is appropriate."

Far from being disappointed at her aide's behavior, the Ranger's face split in a wide smile. "So this is the great Digby! I real treat to meet you, sir." He took the ghoul's hand, shaking it vigorously. Shepard almost caught herself gaping. When it came to Digby, with his stiff attitude and rad rotted features, very rarely was he greeted with apparent glee. "Why, you're just the same as in the comic books!" The Ranger's professional front had fallen away utterly, to be replaced by boyish excitement.

"Digby, I didn't realize that you were in comics," Colonel Dare said, her voice tinged with both surprise and good humour.

"Well, yes," Digby said uncomfortably. "From my time with your grandfather, mum. A few of our adventures might have captured the public eye a bit."

"A few?" Corry laughed, going so far as to slap his thigh. "I have them all. Your fight with the Treens, the Colonial Wars, the Vault-Tec skirmishes. Why, you must have had close to fifty adventures published in print here in the NNCR alone! I suppose they will have to print a new one now. New Dare, same Digby."

"Well, this has been eye opening," Dare said jokingly, "But I don't imagine they'll print anything if we don't take off soon. I fear what Turque will do should we delay any longer. Perhaps we'll meet again, Ranger Corry." She smiled and turned back towards her ship. Space called again, and a Dare would answer it.

* * *

 **ACCESSING CITADEL EXTRANET. . .**

 **RETRIEVING CODEX ENTRY. . .**

 _ **Turian Hierarchy Ship Archangel**_

The _Archangel_ was first conceived as part of an effort to sooth tensions between the military arms of the Turian Hierarchy and the Salarian Union following disagreement over the handling of Batarian expansion into the Terminus Systems. (See: Turian-Batarian Conflict, Known STG Operations; Entry 3 of 4. Also See: Turian-Batarian Conflict, Suspected STG Operations; Entries 12-15, 23, 26-28 of 37) Though many of its systems and the technologies involved therein are still classified, at launch under the command of Spectre Nihlus Kryik the ship was widely touted as a breakthrough in the field of stealth technologies. At the core of this breakthrough is the revolutionary Tassartras drive, said to harness the Mass Effect to accelerate the ship without producing emissions. This, combined with Salarian designed heat sinks rendered the ship all but invisible to contemporary sensor technologies.

While primarily a Turian ship, flying under Hierarchy colours, the _Archangel_ represents a departure from the traditional Turian aesthetic, adopting a more Salarian forward swept wing configuration. The ship did, however, retain the angular construction often associated with Turian frigate designs. This is most obvious in the ship's extended neck, which held the pilot's station separate from the rest of the bridge. The design of the bridge itself is also distinctly Turian, being rectangular in shape, with the commanding officer's station at the rear and raised above the consoles of the bridge crew.

The dimensions of the _Archangel_ are small, even for a frigate. From bow to stern it measures only 190 meters long. The superstructure is divided into three decks, the command deck, the crew deck, and the engineering deck. The command deck is the smallest of the three, consisting of only the pilot's station, the outer airlock, and the CIC/bridge. The rest of the ship can be accessed through elevator shafts and the rear of the CIC. The crew deck as originally designed was strictly separated between 'officer country' and 'rating country,' in deference to the Turian Hierarchy's strictly stratified command structure. However, under the command of Spectre Garrus Vakarian, these restrictions were lifted, with space and facilities being shared more evenly. The commander's quarters are placed at the bow end of this deck, right across the central corridor from the elevator bank. The crew deck also holds the ship's modest mess area as well as support facilities such as the infirmary, recreation facility, and a small gym. Lastly, the ship's largest and most important deck, that of Engineering, is tucked within the frigate's belly. This deck holds the ship's powerful and oversized mass effect core along with all the essential power linkages and regulators required to keep it running. The armoured midsection contains the _Archangel's_ bank of He3 Fusion reactors and the advanced computer core. This core is rumored to contain an advanced Quarian designed VI, though its exact specifications are classified. The engineering deck also serves host to the _Archangel's_ compact shuttle bay, and is capable of servicing a number of small craft, from land attack crawlers to a Tiger Hawk-class gunship.

At launch, the ship carried a standard armament of quick firing mass accelerators in the nose, and a launch bay for short range disruptor torpedoes. Following the Citadel Incident at the advent of the Reaper War, the _Archangel_ was uparmed with reverse engineered Thanix hydrodynamic weaponry and improved cyclonic barriers. It was stated for armour improvements, though these were never completed as the ship was hijacked by elements of the Turian Separatist Movement.

For Additional information regarding the _Turian Hierarchy Ship Archangel_ 's involvement in the Reaper Wars, See: The Reaper Wars, The Palavan Campaign, The Turian Separatist Movement.

 **End Transmission**

* * *

 **Author's Notes:  
**

A Certain Member's Fandom: Hope I haven't lost you with this new chapter. Personally, I believe that the two would have eventually drifted together over the course of the events of canon, especially given the conspicuous absence of a Commander Shepard. You're free to disagree though, I just hope that it isn't going to poison the story for you enough to unfollow.

Alkeni, 5 Coloured Walker: I admit the opening is a little chaotic. While I do plan on explaining more as the story goes on, I'd be happy to take any questions you might have, either in more of the Codex entries and the like I'll be posting at the end of new chapters, or by PM. Let me know if there's anything you can clear up for you.

HikariNiwa: That's for sure. I can't imagine that access to space age combat drugs and rocketry has calmed them down any.

Thank you all for taking the time to review. Hope to see you again next time, with something a little more action based.

-Liddle Out


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